MAP Urges FCC to Focus on Media Ownership Diversity in Rules Review

Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman urged the Federal Communications Commission to consider a study of the impact on ownership diversity of relaxing regulations as part of its review of media ownership rules. He said the Commission needs to look at shared services agreements, which he says are an evasion of the local ownership rules, and the UHF discount, which he says has been rendered obsolete by the DTV transition. (Station owners only get charged with half the audience for a UHF station when it comes to national audience ownership limits.) He said the quadrennial media ownership rule review should not be turned into a referendum on the state of the media marketplace in general.